Face-to-Face.The Story of the Baltic Exchange was a exhibition project by Salto Architects Maarja Kask and Ralf Lõoke in collaboration with an artist Neeme Külm in Museum of Estonian Architecture, 6 May – 5 June in 2016. The installation was inspired by the intriguing story of a historical landmark building of Baltic Exchange in London and what remained of it after Irish Republican Army bomb attack in 1992.

The installation aimed to question how to expand the means of presenting architecture and ways of interpreting it in exhibition format? On the one hand, the exhibition offered a new kind of personal emotion of experiencing space. While on the other hand, it critically engaged with the museum environment and the ordinary design of architecture exhibitions. Therefore, the installation presented the viewer with a number of perspectives of the story.

In 2016, Salto Architects Maarja Kask and Ralf Lõoke were awarded with Estonian Academy of Arts Creative Award for the Face-to-Face: The Story of the Baltic Exchange exhibition for interpreting terrorism in relation to architecture.

The visitor could push a button and summon part of the installation to move closer and farther, i.e. face-to-face with them and back to its original composition. This gave the visitor a chance to experience the intriguing story of the building with its extraordinary fate and detached fragments that had undergone so many changes in context and ponder about what happens to a building that loses its original site?

How are the connections between an old object and new environment created? Who is to pass judgement on the value of a piece of architecture? What value is there in salvaging a building? How do we develop emotional ties with architectural symbols and what role do such ties play as a means of exerting influence in society and politics?

The Baltic Exchange building has been considered a masterpiece of neoclassical Edwardian architecture that was designed by Smith and Wimble in 1903. In 1992, the building was heavily damaged by an Irish Republican Army bomb attack. After the attack, the building was dismantled stone by stone, the valuable parts were numbered and put in storage with the intention of restoring the building to its historical form. However, instead of renovation it was replaced by a new architectural landmark building – the 41-storey office building known as the “Gherkin” (by Foster and Partners).

Efforts have been made to give new life to the Baltic Exchange building in Estonia and combine its facade with several new real estate developments. Various expectations and conflicts have surfaced, causing the facade fragments to lie waiting for almost a decade in shipping containers in the port of Paldiski.

The building almost found a new home on Long Island, New York and in Battersea development in London. Thus, it was an unlikely intervention by Estonian businessmen that saved the dismantled structure from its final demise of being sold, for example, for a fireplace decor. Hence, in 2007, the sizeable delivery – forty numbered shipping containers with stairs, marble columns, telephone boxes with wooden panelling, stucco sea monsters and other details – arrived to Estonia.

The exhibition showed the pediment of Baltic Exchange in twelve parts at the 500 m2 exposition hall at the Museum of Estonian Architecture. Each sandstone part weighted from 0,3 up to 2,5 tons.